Robotic amphibian takes to the water

A ROBOTIC salamander crawls towards the water, steps in and starts swimming. It is a taster of what's to come: a fresh breed of robots that will be able to switch seamlessly between swimming and walking, all under the control of an artificial nervous system.

In animals, movement is coordinated by a cluster of neurons in the spinal cord called the central pattern generator (CPG). This produces signals that drive muscles to contract rhythmically in a way that produces running or walking, depending on the pattern of pulses. A simple signal from the brain instructs the CPG to switch between different modes, such as going from a standstill to walking.

Now a team led by Auke Ijspeert at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne has built an 85-centimetre-long "salamander" robot controlled by an artificial spinal cord and CPG. The CPG is a chip programmed to produce a pattern ...

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